On Friday, 2/15/2008, Jamie Johnson appeared on the Closing Bell, on CNBC and discussed his film, "Born Rich". He is one of the great-grandsons of the founder of Johnson & Johnson Inc. Through this film he reveals insights into the psyche of the wealthy. It is a bold and unprecidented move for someone from his class.
The subject of making wealth transparent, is of great interest to me, and has been the subject of my work and research as an artist and independent scholar.
It has been very difficult finding a forum for work which addresses these issues on either the conservative or liberal channels. Traditional art venues have specific political agendas, and anything which is not aligned with them is often viewed with skepticism. Bringing up work which addresses the economy in depth, has been met at times with hostility. I think in part this is because those who oversee the major art venues, are often from wealthy families. Or if they are not, they are unwilling to learn about the structures within the economy, for a myriad of reasons. Also, as Jamie mentioned, it is taboo or "crass" to discuss money in circles which have it. This insures that the financial markets remain opaque to the broader culture, yet no one is immune from feeling their impact.
I was surprised to see someone from the Johnson family produce a film that addresses the subject of wealth. I know of another Johnson heir, John S. Johnson, who also makes films and is involved in New Media. I do not believe he has ever wanted to discuss the economy or wealth through his work. I think it is very positive, that Jamie has taken on this project. It marks a definite shift in the art world.
I noticed that Dennis Kneale became very angry, and seemed to feel that the wealthy were somehow being attacked by this film or by the act of producing it. He brought up the issue of taxes paid by the wealthy, and questioned whether participating in this film had something to do with some sort of grudge, (in the case of the Buffet granddaughter, who participated). Jamie is young, and aligned with specific political agendas, as are most artists, as I mentioned above. He responded by mentioning key figures which of course could be seen as red flags to anyone with contrary views. Never-the-less, there is great value to what he has begun, beyond any political agenda.
My own work has involved studying the markets since 2002. I began this when I was teaching courses which addressed disparate disciplines for artists; starting with computer science and biotechnology. In 2000, I wrote a successful grant with a theoretician and historian of science and a medical researcher to teach a course where artists worked directly with tissue culture in order to better understand the "looking apparatus" used within our sciences.
At the time, this course taught at the University of Washington, and its predecessors which I taught at Carnegie Mellon University were politically difficult to approach, implement, and sustain, (they are now common place). Because of this, my resources were reduced, and I was left to teach seminar courses on interdisciplinary studies. This is where I first encountered students from the school of business and became inspired to better understand the markets. Later, in 2002, I taught a graduate level course for artists called "$: A Cultural Symbol". It was informed by the writing of George Bataille, in "The Accursed Share", which has a depth of metaphor about the markets and the economy that I found to be very beautiful.
I left academia in 2002, and decided to try to develop a space where artistic observations could be put to use to further transparency in fields within the sciences and the financial sector. Financially, it has been very difficult to achieve, since it involves creating a new market, and breaking new ground without family or institutional support. Never-the-less, I believe strongly in the need for this within our culture, and that it is a valuable role for artists. It is beginning, and it will succeed.
As part of my research for this project, I worked for a short time at RBC Dain Rauscher. Since then, I formed an organization, WRLDs, LLC, (You can learn more by visiting our web site at WRLDs.com).
We take on a series of projects which address specific disciplines. Our current project addresses the financial markets. Based on data from the markets, social objects are created, that shifts the location of information, and hopefully creates more transparency about the field. We do this through two methods. One involves a social networking environment, (currently under construction), where users enter trading data, and create a shareable virtual 3D object. This object can then be transformed by "printing" it as a 3D physical object in various materials. Doing so results in the creation of fields of social objects, located in architectural space. These are called System Objects.
We also create objects which are designed by us, involving metaphors which document pivotal, combinatorial moments in the markets. We call these Library Objects. For instance in September, we published an object to document the events that occurred during the week of September 18th, 2007 which we felt were significant to our culture. This has proved to be the case as it documented the position of Goldman Sachs, and the role of the Federal Reserve as the markets began to capitulate in the recent mortgage and credit market recessions.
Our goal is to create a social space, which extends out into the broader culture through the establishment of a new profitable market which also provides transparency and education about the financial markets which profoundly impact us all.
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